The Super Bowl Lights Up: Coach Pete Carroll on Pot

With the entire planet’s media covering the 2014 Super Bowl, it was inevitable that the issue of cannabis would be broached at some point. With both teams representing states that have legalized adult, recreational use of cannabis, how can one ignore the fact that the Denver Broncos hail from the “Mile High City” and the Seattle Seahawks are based in “The Evergreen State?” If ever there was an opportunity for cannabis to piggyback upon an event watched by the world, this is it.

Leave it to affable Seahawks coach Pete Carroll to give a reasoned, articulate opinion on pot: "I would say that we have to explore and find ways to make our game a better game and take care of our players in whatever way possible," he said at a news conference. "Regardless of what other stigmas might be involved, we have to do this because the world of medicine is doing this."

Earlier this month, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell left the policy door open ever so slightly for pro football players to eventually use legal medical marijuana — even if the commish never did actually utter the "M" word. Asked if players would ever be allowed to toke up in states where it’s legal, Goodell replied: “I don’t know what’s going to develop as far as the next opportunity for medicine to evolve and to help either deal with pain or help deal with injuries, but we will continue to support the evolution of medicine.”

How courageous. Goodell’s position is significantly more encouraging than the NFL’s zero-tolerance reaction in 2012, when Colorado and Washington legalized recreational pot. At that time, the NFL flatly stated the current collective bargaining agreement prohibited marijuana use by players. However, the CBA only bans the “illegal” use of cannabis, it permits use — but not abuse — of all legal drugs and alcohol. If the players' union seeks to specifically include legal marijuana into the next CBA, it must wait until after 2021 when the current ten-year agreement expires.

In other Super Bowl pot news, Marshawn Lynch, the hard-running back for the Seahawks has had a strain named after him — “Beast Mode.”

“It’s extremely strong,” says Nate “Diggity” Johnson, owner of the Queen Anne Cannabis Club in Seattle, WA. “Marshawn has gears when he’s running and it’s kind of like that. It has a little bit of a slow start and then kicks in.” (We highly doubt that Beast Mode is that powerful. Because if a strain even approached the force of Lynch actually hitting you, we doubt if you’d ever toke up again.)

The growers responsible for Beast Mode say it was a happy accident. They thought they were growing Girl Scout Cookies. But once they tried the strain, they realized it wasn’t. It was something much more powerful. One of the growers explained the name’s origin: “It hit me like Beast Mode.”

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